~ Video Game (& Ephemera) Conversations

What About Portal?

Portal 2 was a lot of fun. Very well designed: I like how you get commentary from different characters to keep you company as you go, so it’s not too much of Generic Chipper Voice, or Wheatley, or GLaDoS, or Cave Johnson. Good length, too. You wouldn’t have wanted to play FOREVER, and I felt like it ended before I was tired of the whole puzzle test thing. The story was simple and linear, but very well incorporated into the main puzzle-solving aspect of the game. And of course the portal gun is just a brilliant device, and they were able to do so many interesting things with it.

Butch:

I also sorta take back that celebrity voice over stuff now that I ponder JK Simmons in that game. He did a job and a half, I think.

People do play forever. There’s over 60,000 fan made chambers for free on the webs, at least if you have the PC version.

Feminina:

Yes! That’s who that was! JK Simmons did kick ass there. And the thing is, it wasn’t glaringly obvious (at least to me) that it was a ‘celebrity voice’–he was just acting it, and it worked great. THAT’S how you cast celebrities in games.

I loved how by the end you’re just in such a portal gun space that you don’t even hesitate when you see the moon–you just shoot at it because it’s about the right color for a portal space, without even pausing to think about whether or not that would really be a good idea if it worked. (Which…it wouldn’t really, but of course it is, because.) At least, that’s what I did.

And nice writing, good jokes and the slight foreshadowing of how the moon will show up with the discussion of missing astronauts and how they make the portals.

Butch:

See, I did not. It took me a long, LONG time to figure out to shoot the moon. Which is really stupid, because if you’re listening to Cave Johnson, he mentions that the grey goo (that allows you to portal non portalable surfaces) is made from lunar dust, which is how he gets sick and dies, earlier in the game.

Feminina:

I guess I was just highly sensitized after weeks of shooting at every remotely grayish visible surface I came across. I didn’t even hesitate when the roof opened and the moon showed up, it was just “grayish visible surface! shoot it!”

One point for the ‘indiscriminately shoot everything’ theory.

Never mind that it could easily have resulted in my frozen body floating endlessly through space if GLaDoS hadn’t felt like dragging me back in. So, maybe half a point for that theory.

Butch:

See, the lack of ceiling threw me. I was all “Wait… where are the walls?!?!?! There must be walls! I cannot work without walls!”

I can see you approached this not in the “Let’s think this through” way my SEVEN YEAR OLD did (He was five at the time), but in the “let’s shoot everything until the cubes go where they should” way.

Feminina:

OK, I cannot stand by while my renowned deep thoughtfulness is impugned. Shooting indiscriminately at everything in sight is what you do FIRST, just to see where the portals can go (and whether or not you can knock that camera down with a portal gun shot…which you sometimes can, although it doesn’t do you any good that I ever discovered).

Then once you know what you CAN do, you think about what you NEED to do. I spent plenty of time thinking.

I imagine it would take a million monkeys at a million controllers about a million years to succeed at some of those puzzles by just shooting randomly. Obviously one stops to think–AFTER shooting at everything so you know what you’re working with.

I like to take a balanced approach. Just because I shoot first, doesn’t mean I don’t ask questions afterwards.

Besides, things are extremely stressful at the moment the moon appears…it’s closely after all those timed sections where the reactor overheats if you don’t get the cores on Wheatley in time, so I was like “this could be timed! must act now! shoot something, quick!”

Not to detract in any way from Butch Jr.’s thoughtfulness, which will certainly take him far in life.

Butch:

Not only is it timed, Wheatley is talking about the moon the whole time. He was practically screaming “Shoot the moon you moron!” and I didn’t do it.

Perhaps one can be too thoughtful.

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About Feminina O'Ladybrain

As a woman, Feminina O'Ladybrain loves skimpy armor, the Smurfette Principle, and being rescued. She also enjoys setting things on fire, and is unusually fond of shotguns.
She likes lady games, such as 'Lady: The Game,' but since that doesn't exist, she plays a lot of series, like 'Dragon Age,' 'Mass Effect,' and 'Assassin's Creed.'